Companies of all sizes are under assault from sophisticated ransomware groups, and the government’s recent prosecution of a former Uber executive for failing to disclose a data breach to law enforcement has company executives, and security chiefs in particular, anxious that they might be next.

Alex Stamos, former chief security officer at Facebook and now director at the Stanford Internet Observatory, said Tuesday that the unprecedented criminal case against ex-Uber security chief Joe Sullivan, the first of its kind against a company executive, is problematic on several fronts.